The Stars of the White Nights is one of the brightest
stars of the music and theatre universe and has emerged to be one of the most
popular and grandiose music forums in its context and scale.

The Stars of the White Nights Festival was created in
1993 by Valery Gergiev, Mariinsky Theatre Artistic and
General Director.Maestro Gergiev says that he conceived the first Festival as a
"musical gift" to the city from the Mariinsky and its star-artists. From the
very beginning the Festival has been focused on the masterpieces of the world's
music discovering for its audience some rarely performed or undeservedly
forgotten pieces.

The Stars of the White Nights Festival has gained in
strength, popularity and international acclaim. The duration for the Festival it
has expanded from ten days to three months during the last sixteen year.
Renowned conductors and star-artists take as great honour the invitation to
perform at the Stars of the White Nights. Each year the Festival
programme includes the Theater's finest opera and ballet productions, great
symphonic works, masterpieces of chamber music and new premieres.

During
the last years the Festival programme has included the works created by the
great classical composers – Beethoven symphonies, Prokofiev's and Tchaikovsky's operas, ballets and
symphony music. Major events at the Stars have included the production
of Wagner's Der Ring des
Nibelungen, in addition to the Shostakovich and Mahler Symphonies
series.

This festival is a must for ballet, opera and classical music
amateurs. The annual Stars of the White Nights Festival takes an
inspiration for its name from the short summer season when the sun never sets,
and the beauty of St-Petersburg White Nights contributes to the festival's
special atmosphere and its world-class programme of concerts, as audience comes
out of the historic theatre at midnight into daylight to stroll along the
streets of the theatrical setting of St Petersburg.

At a press conference on 10 May 2011 Valery Gergiev said “For us it is very important
to stage "The Legend of Love" in
Moscow in the presence of the composer Arif Melikov. We are dedicating these
performances to the fiftieth anniversary of his renowned ballet to choreography
by Maestro Yuri
Grigorovich. During the Stars of the White
Nights, in Moscow on several occasions we have presented outstanding
musicians and exceptional companies. During the Stars we have brought
the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Mariinsky Theatre
Orchestra with conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and the orchestra of La Scala
and Riccardo Muti among others to
Moscow... It seemed to me then that Moscow audiences gave us a very warm
reception. Now we are coming to Moscow and – for us – the new venue of Crocus
City Hall with a ballet programme. It is possible that after the festival we
will be performing other productions there.”

On 13 June at the ancient Kremlin in Veliky Novgorod there will
be a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera "Sadko" under Valery Gergiev. At the press conference the maestro said “I
believe it is important that a city with such a history and such a culture as
that of

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff –
the unveiling of the monument to whom we were involved in – finds it of great
interest and significance to be in talks with the Mariinsky Theatre to stage the
great Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera about Sadko – a native of
Veliky Novgorod – within the walls of the Kremlin. We have been working on the
concept with true inspiration. We began talks several years ago when we started
collaborating between St Petersburg and the surrounding regions. We also plan to
return to and perform in Pskov, Petrozavodsk, Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and
Kaliningrad.”

Once again renowned international performers will be converging
on St Petersburg. Guest violinists at the festival include Vadim
Repin and Leonidas Kavakos, who will be joined by other festival friends
such as the star Gil Shaham, appearing for the first time at the Stars,
and the dazzling young violinist Alina Ibragimova, who made her stunning debut at the Concert
Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre in March 2011.

Highly acclaimed pianists will be performing at the festival.
For the first time there will be a unique concert series –

Rudolf Buchbinder, renowned for his
interpretation of the music of the Viennese classics, will perform Beethoven’s
thirty-two sonatas over seven evenings. The brilliant Austrian pianist is
spending the 2010-2011 season under the auspices of Ludwig Van Beethoven. The musician has released a disc of his sonatas
from live concerts at the Semperoper in Dresden. Buchbinder has performed his
piano concerti at the most prestigious concert halls in Europe. St Petersburg is
the only Russian city to feature on that list. At the Stars there will
be performances of all thirty-two sonatas by Beethoven.

Denis Matsuev and Alexander Toradze will be appearing with the
Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra.

The festival will also bring together outstanding conductors.
Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, a highly acclaimed young Spanish conductor, will take
to the stand at the Mariinsky Theatre for the first time and conduct a concert
performance of Manuel de Falla’s classical Spanish opera

For the Italian Gianandrea Noseda, working with the Mariinsky Theatre is
nothing new. Noseda will be returning to St Petersburg to take the conducting
stand with a Russian and Italian programme of works by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Ottorino Respighi.

Outstanding Estonian conductor Neeme Jarvi, head of a dazzling
musical family, will also be returning to perform with the Mariinsky Theatre
Orchestra. The programme for his concert includes the poem Dawn by
Heino Eller, the founding father of the contemporary Estonian composition
school, and works by Peter
Tchaikovsky – his First Piano Concerto and Fifth Symphony.

Paavo Jarvi, recipient of a Grammy
for a recording of Jean Sibelius’ cantatas, will be coming to St Petersburg with
the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, one of the finest orchestras in Europe.

Of the full symphony orchestras at the festival, two acclaimed
Russian ensembles will be performing – the Symphony Orchestra of the St
Petersburg Philharmonic, Honoured Ensemble of Russia, under Yuri
Temirkanov and the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia under Vladimir Spivakov. Festival guests include
the

Moscow Soloists with Yuri
Bashmet, The Philharmonics of the Wiener Philharmoniker who
specialise in the crossover genre and the Orchestra of the Herbert von Karajan
Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker under Wilfried Strehle.

Krzysztof Penderecki will be conducting the Mariinsky Theatre
Orchestra and will be attending the Russian premiere of his work A Sea of
Dreams Did Breathe on Me... Songs of Reverie and Nostalgia, a cycle of
twenty-one songs for soprano, mezzo-soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra to
verse by Polish poets. Valery Gergiev will be conducting the premiere.

The festival’s ballet playbill includes the finest productions
in the repertoire such as this season’s premiere of

Diana Vishneva’s gala marks fifteen years of the ballerina’s
life on the stage and will feature soloists from the world’s great ballet
companies with whim she works. For her gala, the dancer is rehearsing the
Russian premiere of a ballet by Martha Graham.

The first of the most awaited and anticipated opera premieres of
the festival will be Giuseppe Verdi’s

Aidaon 11 and 14
June in a production by Swiss stage director and choreographer Daniel Finzi
Pasca at the Concert Hall. A magician and visionary, Finzi Pasca – who staged
the acclaimed Corteo show for the Cirque du Soleil and who has staged
Donca – a production of plastique after motifs by Chekhov – to
great acclaim in Russia, will be working on one of Verdi’s most popular operas.
Valery Gergiev will be conducting.

At the press conference Valery Gergiev said “We have been speaking with Finzi Pasca
for about a year. We had the idea of doing Aida at the Concert Hall as
a vivid and democratic production, a production that can be staged frequently. I
don’t mean to compare it with the renowned production of Die
Zauberflute – it has been performed about one hundred times, and from my
point of view that is a sign of a production’s success or failure. I won’t hide
my hopes that with Aida I hope we get a production for more than one
season and that we can lease it out. He’s an interesting director but we mustn’t
get ahead of ourselves.”

Yet another of the festival’s opera premieres at the Concert
Hall comes on 21 and 27 July with Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, staged by Claudia Solti under the musical direction of Valery Gergiev with Willard White in one of the lead roles. “Claudia Solti,
daughter of the renowned conductor, works more in cinema, but here she is
staging an opera that her father loved very much. I hope that both premieres
will prove a great addition to the festival,” Valery Gergiev commented on the event at the press conference.

Renowned Hollywood actor John Malkovich will be returning to the
festival with

The Stars of the White Nights is one
of the brightest stars of the music and theatre universe and has emerged to be
one of the most popular and grandiose music forums in its context and scale.

The Stars of the White Nights Festival was created in
1993 by Valery Gergiev, Mariinsky Theatre Artistic and
General Director.Maestro Gergiev says that he conceived the first Festival as a
"musical gift" to the city from the Mariinsky and its star-artists. From the
very beginning the Festival has been focused on the masterpieces of the world's
music discovering for its audience some rarely performed or undeservedly
forgotten pieces.

The Stars of the White Nights Festival has gained in
strength, popularity and international acclaim. The duration for the Festival it
has expanded from ten days to three months during the last sixteen year.
Renowned conductors and star-artists take as great honour the invitation to
perform at the Stars of the White Nights. Each year the Festival
programme includes the Theater's finest opera and ballet productions, great
symphonic works, masterpieces of chamber music and new premieres.

During
the last years the Festival programme has included the works created by the
great classical composers – Beethoven symphonies, Prokofiev's and Tchaikovsky's operas, ballets and
symphony music. Major events at the Stars have included the production
of Wagner's Der Ring des
Nibelungen, in addition to the Shostakovich and Mahler Symphonies
series.

This festival is a must for ballet, opera and classical music
amateurs. The annual Stars of the White Nights Festival takes an
inspiration for its name from the short summer season when the sun never sets,
and the beauty of St-Petersburg White Nights contributes to the festival's
special atmosphere and its world-class programme of concerts, as audience comes
out of the historic theatre at midnight into daylight to stroll along the
streets of the theatrical setting of St Petersburg.